Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments relate in general to the field of robotics and, more specifically, to systems and methods for using an external sensor, such as an accurate location sensor, and a mobile device to simulate real sensors for a robot.
Description of the Related Art
Adding new fancy functions such security fencing or dynamic navigation map to a released robot in a traditional way is not an easy task. Normally, robot owners need to ship robots back to manufactures for installing new sensors, adding new hardware and software interfaces for defining a map or security fencing and reprogramming the core control units with new algorithms for new hardware and the corresponding new functions. The above-described required steps make the overall robot upgrade process very expensive and time-consuming.
On the other hand, robots may need many different sensors to help their navigation. It may need line detection sensors to tell if the robot is on the left or right of a line so that the robot can follow a predefined line. It may need a distance sensor to tell the robot how close it is to existing obstacles for collision avoidance. It may also need direction sensors to tell the robot how to turn its direction accurately for some tasks such shooting a photo or a video.
Therefore, there is a need for new systems and methods that would provide new sensing functionality to existing robots in an inexpensive, simple and effective manner.